Slumdog Millionaire

If you’re a movie buff then I’m sure you totally enjoyed watching this movie- Slumdog Millionaire. It ranks as one of my all-time favs and I’m quite difficult to please especially with movies & music. But slum dog millionaire made the cut.
The British movie produced in 2008 swept 8 out of the 9 academy awards it was nominated for that year.
Oh yeah, it was that good. But I already told you, didn’t I?
For those who by then were underground or prolly too young to see it (Millennium babies😝), lemme give a small narrative.

The movie is about a young boy from the slums of India who is a contestant on the Indian version of who wants to be a millionaire? And is a question away from the grand prize, however, before he gets the chance to answer the question, he is whisked away and tortured by the police who suspect him of cheating because how could a “Slumdog” with very little education get all the answers professors were failing to even get past at the first hurdle.
During the interrogation, the boy reveals how he’s able to answer the questions as he get the answers from flashbacks of his life which relate to the questions asked. (The movie goes back & forth, from past to present)
To answer the final question he has to remember … Err… you know what, just get the movie for yourself. At the very least find out how it ends, nobody likes spoilers anyway.
Alright, so this movie smoothly transitions me to what exactly I want to talk about, a true-life epitome of the SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

SUNDAR PICHAI, this name may not be familiar to you unless you’re a techie or seriously abreast with the tech world but chances are you have and still are using his products.
Sundar Pichai is a name of a boy who once walked the very busy streets of India and today is THE MAN, the CEO, the captain steering the Google juggernaut.
Scrolling through my twitter feed I found an article from The Guardian about this man and his meteoric rise to head one of the most prestigious and largest companies of our time.
Sundar, was born in India, from a humble background, a son of an electrical engineer.
They lived in a two bedroom apartment. The family didn’t have a car so they instead opted to take a bus or load themselves on to a Lambretta scooter.
His father owned an electrical shop on the side where Sundar took keen interest in electronics at a tender age.
Fast forward to his tertiary education, Sundar earned a degree at the Indian Institute Technology in Metallurgical Engineering (whatever that is).
He excelled and his professors recommended he pursue a PhD at Stanford but instead he went for MS and MBA degrees from Stanford University and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania respectively. He was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar, evidence of how exceptional a student he was.
Before then, acquiring money to buy his plane ticket to the U.S was quite a challenge. The cost was more than his father’s annual salary.
Mr. Pichai joined the Google family in 2004 after previously working in management consultant at Mckinsey Company and also in engineering and product management at Applied Materials also another company.
At Google, Pichai led the product management and innovation of the Google client software product in the creation of the Google Chrome, Chrome OS, Google Maps and Google+ amongst others.
Sundar was able to convince Segrey Brin co-founder & one half of the Google brothers, that given the chance his creation, the chrome would push Morzilla firefox and the Internet Explorer to the back of the queue. And true to his word, he did.
With this, Pichai distinguished himself as the architect of one of the most valuable products in the Google’s vast repository.
The Chrome, a lightning-fast sponge of a web browser put Sundar on the map of the tech world.

In March 2013, he added Android to the list of Google products he oversees. (if you’ve ever used the Google Chrome browser or an Android phone then you have Sundar Pichai to thank).

Ironically, working at google wasn’t all honky-dory as one would expect.
Sundar like any employee elsewhere encountered some difficult relating and working with a particular colleague.
There was friction and tension whenever they had to work together but for the good of the company they forged a formal working relationship for the good of the firm.
Looking back he said the situation was quite ironic as by then running away to Apple Inc. was much easier than staying on at Google.
After his chrome and android success Sundar Pichai had become the toast the tech industry, the golden boy.
Companies like Twitter, Apple Inc. and a host of other tech firms were ready to pounce and snatch Pichai but Google were smart and slick enough in getting him to stay by giving him a proposal he couldn’t refuse.
On the 10th of August, 2015 Google promoted Mr. Pichai to the role of the Chief Executive and was given a huge vote of confidence by billionaire co-founder and other half of Google- Larry Page.
Now, what impressed me about this young man’s journey to the top was how the young man from India(a “3rd world & developing country”) didn’t allow his surroundings and circumstances to limit him. Whether it was his home in India or his working environment at Google. Instead he overcame the odds to head one of the largest 5 companies in the world, becoming one of the most influential people in the world.